Easy Christmas Garland

Pretty cheap, too.  And a great activity for bored kids during a snow storm.  Just sayin'.

I spent $13 for all of this, and still have a bunch of the stocking paper and jute.   I think I'm going to make more of it, but need to get more background paper for it.   We wiped out the store, though, so I'll either have to find similar stuff or complimentary stuff or hope that another craft store has the same one.  My guess is that it isn't going to be too hard to find more.

I'd been looking around EVERYWHERE for garland that didn't look horribly fake or cost $50 for a short section (WHY is that stuff so expensive?!?!) and was coming up empty.  A quick google search found lots of do-it-yourself options, but none looked like something my kids would be able to handle.  (Remember that they're young and boys!!).  I happened upon a version of this garland, and decided to tweak it to fit my rascals, and I really like the way it turned out!

So, here you go:  easy, cheap, cute, kid-friendly Christmas garland craft project (that can be done in an hour or less!!  It took us about 30 minutes, from start to finish).

Things you'll need:

Scrapbooking paper....I used four of the 12x12 sheets and cut them into the flags for the background, and then picked up a small 6x6 book of multiple Christmas prints to cut into the stocking shapes

Glue....we used regular old Elmers for the stocking/flag part and then I hot glued it to the jute

jute, cording, yarn, ribbon...whatever you think would work best for your kids

I forgot to get a picture of us cutting it into the right shapes, so sorry for not having a picture for step one.  Bad blogger, I know.   But that's the first step - cut the flags and then the stocking pieces.  I did two pieces for the stockings, to make it easier on me to cut and more work (cough cough "fun" as I told the kids!) for the kids to do.  

Glue the stockings to the flags.   (super helpful, huh?  I know, I know...)

Let everything dry.   I didn't let it all dry fully, but enough so that everything was tacked into place.  I'm impatient, what can I say?

Use hot glue to glue the flags to the cording.   Alternatively, you could fold the edge over and make it more of a "seam", but our scrapbooking paper was really stiff and I felt like it wouldn't lay flat if I did it that way.   Let the hot glue cool.

Then, you're all done and ready to hang it up!   It was really hard to get a good picture, because it's super dark outside right now (yay Maine...) and my track lighting makes that really difficult, but I will try to get a good picture tomorrow in the natural lighting.

I liked the way this turned out so much that we're going to probably make at least two more strands to hang over windows, instead of the greenery and lights that I was planning on.   It's kind of quirky and "classy kids" decoration, I think.   Not super cheesy, but kid-friendly.

(and don't worry, I'm taking it back down in a few minutes.  After all, it's not Christmas yet!!   Gotta highlight Advent decorations a bit longer......)